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MR. BACON'S ADDRESS 



BEFORE THE 



NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY 



CITY OF NEW YORK, 



DECEBIBER 32, 1838. 



AN 



ADDRESS 



BEFOKE THE 



NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY 



1 



CITY OF NEW YORK, 



FOREFATHERS' DAY, 



DECEMBER 32, 1838. 

I ^ BY LEONARD BACON, 

,,l „„.......„.„,...;„.„ 



NEW YORK: 
EZRA COLLIER 



/). /^/Jt^' 



1839. 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1839, 

By Leonard Bacon, 
In the Clerk's office of the District Court of Connecticut. 



Printed by B. L. Hamlen, New Haven, Conn. 



New York, January 11, 1839. 
Rev. and Dear Sir — 

At the meeting of Board of Officers of the New England Society, on the 28th 
Dec, 1838, the following Resolution was adopted. 

" On motion of Mr. Fessenden, seconded by Mr. Barstow, Resolved, 

" That a Committee be appointed to tender the thanks of the Society to the 
Rev. Leonard Bacon for his Address on the 22d instant, and that a copy of the 
same be requested for publication." 

J feel myself happy in being selected as the organ of the Society to convey to 
you the request contained in the above Resolution ; and I sincerely hope that the 
great merit of the Address, and the interesting circumstances under which it was 
delivered, will induce you to meet the wishes of the Committee. 

Absence from the city, and a severe domestic affliction, have necessarily delayed 

the execution of the trust committed to me until now. 

With much esteem, 

H. P. PEET. 
Rev. Leonard Bacon. 



New Haven, 12th Feb., 1839. 

Dear Sir — 

I have at length found leisure to prepare and submit to your disposal, the copy 
of the Address which I was called to deliver before the New England Society on 
the 22d of December last. 

You are already aware that the Address consists chiefly of extracts hastily com- 
piled from a volume of Historical Discourses, which at the time of my receiving 
the invitation to appear before your Society, was already in the press. As your 
Board of Officers have thought proper to insist on their request, with a knowledge 
of this fact, I yield to their desire, regretting only that the Address is not more 
worthy of the occasion and the theme. 

Respectfully, &c. 

LEONARD BACON. 
H. P. Peet, Esq. 



ADDRESS. 



Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the New Engla7id Society : 

It would be easy for me to exhaust my time and your 
patience with preambles and apologies. But I throw 
myself at once upon your indulgence. In calling me 
to speak on this occasion, as a New England man, 
you have called me to the New England privilege of 
speaking my mind ; and the brief period which the late- 
ness of your invitation has allowed me for preparation, 
is a pledge that you will receive with kindness the 
materials of discourse which I have been able to col- 
lect, rather than arrange and combine, from among the 
results of previous studies. If my discourse seems long, 
you will remember that ' I have not had time to make it 
short,' and will therefore hear me with such patience as 
becomes the descendants of men who were wont to sit 
without weariness till the preacher, after the last sands 
had fallen, turned the hourglass, and entered on the 
|bcond hour. 

First, let us revive our recollections of the causes 
which led to the settlement of New England, and which 
gave to the New England colonies a shape, constitu- 
tion and spirit, altogether peculiar. Afterwards we 
may proceed to some considerations and statements, 
tending to exhibit in a just light the character of the 
founders of New England, and the civil polity which 
they established. 



When America was discovered by the Spaniards, the 
tropical regions, from Mexico to Brazil, enjoying a cli- 
mate without any winter, rich in all the natural means 
of subsistence and enjoyment, abounding in gold and 
silver and precious stones, adorned in some places with 
temples and palaces and populous cities, and inhabited 
by nations whose half-armed effeminacy, could offer no 
effectual resistance to the strength of European war- 
riors, clad in iron, and equipped with the terrific im- 
plements of modern warfare, presented such a field as 
was never before opened to human rapacity. In a few 
years, the Spanish monarchy, by invasion and violence, 
by cruelty and treachery, had become possessed of vast 
provinces and rich dependent kingdoms in America. 
Portugal, then one of the most considerable powers of 
Christendom, had at the same time laid the foundations 
of her great western empire. What effect the planting 
of such colonies, founded in rapine, and moulded by the 
combined influences of Popery in religion and despo- 
tism in government, has had on the progress of the 
world in freedom, knowledge, and happiness, I need 
not show in detail. Those colonies and conquests 
poured back indeed upon the parent empires, broad 
streams of wealth ; and Spain and Portugal with their 
possessions in the west, were for a few short ages the 
envy of the world. But all prosperity, whether of in- 
dividuals or of nations, that does not spring from hon- 
est industry and from the arts of peace, brings curses 
in its train. The wealth which Spain and Portugal 
derived from their possessions in America has been 
their ruin. And from the hour in which they, weak 
and paralyzed, were no longer able to retain their grasp 
upon their American provinces — from the hour in which 
the various countries from Mexico to Brazil became 



independent, what a sea of anarchy has been tossing 
its waves over those wide realms, so gorgeous with tlie 
lavished wealth of nature. It may even be doubted 
whether there is, at this hour, in Mexico or in Peru, a 
more stable and beneficent government, or a more 
numerous,' comfortable and virtuous population, than 
there was before the atrocious conquests of Cortez and 
Pizarro. What substantial benefit has accrued to the 
world from the planting of Spanish colonies in Ame- 
rica ? What, beyond the benefit of having one more 
illustration, on the grandest scale, of the truth so often 
illustrated in history, that to nations, as to individuals, 
the wages of crime is death. 

The success of Spain, and the reports of adventurers 
who came back to Europe enriched with spoils, excited 
the cupidity of other nations to similar enterprises. 
England, among the rest, was ambitious to have tribu- 
tary provinces in the new world, from which gold and 
gems should come, to fill the treasury of her king, and 
to augment the riches and splendor of her nobility. 
One expedition after another was planned and under- 
taken, in the hope of acquiring some country which 
should be to England, what Mexico and Peru had been 
to Spain. And when in consequence of successive and 
most discouraging failures, such hopes began to be 
abandoned; and plans of colonization, and cultivation, 
and rational commerce, had succeeded to dreams of 
romantic conquest and adventure — when commercial 
companies with royal grants and charters, actuated by 
ordinary commercial motives, attempted to establish 
settlements in North Carolina and Virginia, and upon 
the bleak coast of Maine, the disappointments and dis- 
asters which ensued, demonstrated that another call, 
and another sort of charter, and other and higher im- 



8 

pulses were necessary to success. Commercial enter- 
prise, cheered by royal patronage, and availing itself 
of the genius of Raleigh and the adventurous energy 
of Smith, sent forth its expeditions without success. 
The wilderness and the solitary place would not be 
glad for them, and it seemed as if the savage was to 
roam over these wilds forever. 

But the fullness of time was advancing. Other causes, 
the working of which was obvious to all, but the ten- 
dency of which no human mind had conjectured, were 
operating to secure for religion, for freedom, and for 
science too, their fairest home, and the field of their 
brightest achievements. 

The reformation from Popery, which Wycliffe at- 
tempted in the fourteenth century, and for which Huss 
and Jerome of Prague were martyrs in the fifteenth, 
was successfully begun by Luther in Germany, and by 
Zuingle in Switzerland, about the year 1517 — twenty 
five years after the discovery of America. The minds 
of men having been prepared beforehand, not only by 
the writings of Wyclifie and the martyrdom of Huss 
and Jerome, but also by the new impulse and indepen- 
dence which had been given to thought in consequence 
of the revival of learning then in progress, and by the 
excitement which the discovery of a new world, and of 
new paths and regions for commerce, had spread over 
Europe ; and the invention of printing having provided 
a new instrumentality for the diffusion of knowledge 
and the promotion of free inquiry — only a few years 
elapsed from the time when Luther in the university 
of Wittemberg, and Zuingle in the cathedral of Zurich, 
made their first eflforts, before all Europe was convul- 
sed with the progress of a great intellectual and moral 
emancipation. 



9 

The reformation was essentially the assertion of the 
right of individual thought and opinion, founded on the 
doctrine of individual responsibility. Popery puts the 
consciences of the laity into the keeping of the priest- 
hood. To the priest you are to confess your sins ; from 
him you are to receive penance and forgiveness ; he is 
to be responsible for you, if you do as he bids you ; to 
him you are to commit the guidance and government 
of your soul, with implicit submission. Life and immor- 
tality are only in the sacraments which he dispenses ; 
death and eternal despair are in his malediction. You 
are to do what he enjoins ; you are to believe what he 
teaches ; he is accountable to God — you are accounta- 
ble to him. The reformation, on the contrary, puts the 
Bible into every man's hand, and bids him believe, not 
what the priesthood declares, not what the Church de- 
crees, but what God reveals. It tells him, Here is 
God's word ; and for your reception or rejection of it, 
you are individually and directly accountable to God. 
Thus it was that from the beginning — though princes 
and statesmen did not always so regard it — the cause 
of the reformation was every where essentially the 
cause of freedom ; of manly thought, and bold inquiry ; 
of popular improvement; of universal education. When 
religion, instead of being an affair between man and 
his priest, becomes an affair between man and his God; 
the dignity of man as man at once outshines the dignity 
of pontiffs and of kings. By the doctrine of the re- 
formation, men though fallen and miserable in their 
native estate, are yet, in the estate to which they are 
raised as redeemed by Christ, as emancipated by the 
truth, and as anointed by the Holy Spirit-—" kings and 
priests unto God." 

2 



10 

In England — always to be named with reverential 
affection as the father-land of our fathers — the seeds of 
truth and spiritual freedom, sown by Wycliffe a hun- 
dred and fifty years before Luther's time, were never 
entirely extirpated. And when Germany and Switzer- 
land began to be agitated with the great discussions of 
the reformation, men were soon found in England, who 
sympathized with the reformers, and secretly or openly 
adopted their principles. But in that country, peculiar 
circumstances gave to the reformation of the national 
Church a peculiar form and aspect. 

The English king at that period, was Henry VIII. 
He was, for a prince, uncommonly well educated in the 
scholastic learning of the age ; and not long after the 
commencement of the reformation, he signalized him- 
self, and obtained from the Pope the honorary title of 
" Defender of the Faith," by writing a Latin volume in 
confutation of the heresies of Luther. But afterwards, 
wishing to put away his wife on account of some pre- 
tended scruple of conscience, and not being able to ob- 
tain a divorce by the authority of the Pope, who had 
strong political reasons for evading a compliance with 
his wishes, he quarreled with the Pope, (1529,) and be- 
gan to reform after a fashion of his own. Without 
renouncing any doctrine of the Romish Church, he 
declared the Church of England independent of the 
see of Rome ; he assumed all ecclesiastical power into 
his own hands, making himself head of the Church ; he 
confiscated the lands and treasures of the monasteries ; 
he brought the bishops into an abject dependence on 
his power ; he exercised the prerogative of allowing or 
restraining at his pleasure the circulation and use of 
the Scriptures ; and, with impartial fury, he persecuted 
those who adhered to the Pope, and those who abjured 



the errors of Popery. The religion of the Church of 
England, under his administration, was Popery, with 
the king for Pope. 

During the short reign of Edward IV, (1547,) or 
rather of the regents who governed England in his 
name, the' king himself being under age, the reforma- 
tion of the English Church was commenced with true 
good will, and carried forward as energetically and 
rapidly as was consistent with discretion. Thus when 
the bloody Queen Mary succeeded to the throne, (1553,) 
and attempted to restore, by sword and faggot, the an- 
cient superstition, hundreds were found who followed 
the protomartyr Rogers, and like him sealed their tes- 
timony at the stake ; and hundreds more, of ministers 
and other intelligent and conscientious men, having the 
opportunity of flight, found refuge for a season in the 
various Protestant countries of the continent. At the 
places at which these exiles were hospitably received, 
and particularly at Geneva, they became familiar with 
forms of worship, and of discipline, more completely pu- 
rified from Popery, as they thought, than the forms 
which had as yet been adopted or permitted in their 
native country. Among the English exiles in the city 
of Frankfort, who had the privilege of uniting in public 
worship in their own language, there arose a difference 
of opinion. Some were for a strict conformity of their 
public services to the order which had been established 
in England under king Edward, while others consider- 
ed themselves at liberty to lay aside every thing which 
savored of superstition, and to imitate the simplicity 
which characterized the reformed Churches around 
them. These were denominated by their adversaries, 
" Puritans ;" and the dispute at Frankfort in the year 
1554, is commonly regarded by historians as marking 
the beginning of the Puritan party. 



12 

When the reign of Queen Elizabeth commenced, 
(1558,) the exiles returned, expecting that a princess 
educated in the Protestant faith, whose title to the 
throne was identified with the Protestant cause, would 
energetically carry forward the reformation which had 
been begun under the reign of her brother, but which 
by his premature death had been left confessedly im- 
perfect. This expectation was disappointed. The new 
Queen was more the daughter of Henry than the sister 
of Edward. She seemed to dislike nothing of Popery 
but its inconsistency with her title to the throne, and 
its claims against her ecclesiastical supremacy. 

Those ministers who, in any particular, neglected to 
conform to the prescribed ceremonies and observances, 
were called " Non-conformists ;" and though their non- 
conformity was sometimes connived at by this or that 
more lenient bishop, and sometimes went unpunished 
because of the danger of exciting popular odium, every 
such minister was always liable to be suspended or 
silenced ; and many of them, though the ablest and 
most efficient preachers in the kingdom, at a time when 
not more than one out of four of the clergy could preach 
at all,* were forbidden to preach, and were deprived of 
all their employments. 

The Puritans, it will be remembered, were not a 
secession from the Church of England; they were only 
that party within the Church, which demanded a more 
thorough reformation. Their hopes as a party were 
kept alive, not only by the consciousness that the force 
of argument was on their side, with no inferiority in 
respect to talents and learning ; but partly by the grow- 
ing popularity of their opinions ; partly by the favor of 

* Hallam, Constitutional IIii5tory of England, I, 270. 



13 

those politic and far-seeing statesmen, who, so far as 
the Queen's willfulness would permit, controlled her 
government by their counsels ; and partly by the pros- 
pect that the Queen's successor on the throne might 
be himself a Puritan. 

James* Stuart, King of Scotland, became King of 
England on the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603. 
As he had reigned over a kingdom thoroughly reform- 
ed, and had been educated under influences favorable 
to the simplest and strictest forms of the Protestant re- 
ligion, and had often professed in the most solemn man- 
ner a hearty attachment to those forms, it was hoped, 
notwithstanding his known instability of character and 
his fondness for the pomp and forms of kingly power, 
that he might be inclined to bring the ecclesiastical 
state of England, in its discipline and worship, nearer 
the pattern of the reformed Churches. Accordingly 
while he was on his way to the metropolis of his new 
kingdom, he was met with a petition signed by more 
than eight hundred ministers of the Church of England, 
praying for the reformation of certain particulars in 
worship and discipline, but not aimed at all against the 
principle of prelacy, or the principle of prescribed forms 
of public prayer. Not one of the least of these requests 
was granted ; on the contrary, the Puritans soon found 
that the chances of hereditary succession had placed 
over them as their king, a low minded, vainglorious, 
pedantic fool, to whom the more than oriental adulation 
with which courtly prelates fawned upon him, was 
dearer than the honor of God and the welfare of the 
people. A specimen of what they might expect under 
his reign was given, in the imprisonment of ten of the 
ministers who had presented the reasonable and mode- 
rate petition for reform — the oftense of presenting such 



14 

a petition having been declared in the Star-chamber to 
be " fineable at discretion, and very near to treason and 
felony, as it tended to sedition and rebellion,"* — a pre- 
cedent which, it may be hoped, will not be imitated in 
these days. 

From such persecution, pious and resolute men who 
loved liberty and purity even more than they loved their 
native soil, soon began to retreat into other countries. 
Some had begun to separate themselves professedly 
from the Church of England, as despairing of its re- 
formation, and to organize themselves independently of 
the civil state, framing their ecclesiastical institutions 
according to their own understanding of the word of 
God. A small congregation of such persons, " finding 
by experience that they could not peaceably enjoy their 
own liberty in their native country," removed with their 
families from the north of England into Holland, and 
in the year 1610 settled themselves in the city of Ley- 
den; "and there," in the language of one of them, 
" they continued divers years in a comfortable condi- 
tion, enjoying much sweet society and spiritual comfort 
in the ways of God;" "having for their pastor Mr. 
John Robinson, a man of a learned, polished and mod- 
est spirit, pious, and studying of the truth, largely 
accomplished with spiritual gifts and qualifications to 
be a shepherd over this flock of Christ ; having also a 
fellow helper with him in the eldership, Mr. William 
Brewster, a man of approved piety, gravity and sincer- 
ity, very eminently furnished with gifts suitable to such 
an ofiice."t 

This little Church, after a few years' residence in 
Holland, finding that in the city of strangers where 

* Hallam, I, 406. t Morton's Memorial. 



15 

they were so hospitably received, they labored under 
many disadvantages, especially in regard to the educa- 
tion of their children, and moved also by " a great hope 
and inward zeal they had of laying some good foun- 
dation, or at least to make some way thereunto, for 
the propagating and advancement of the kingdom of 
Christ ;" " yea, although they should be but as stepping 
stones unto others for the performance of so great a 
work," — determined on a removal to America ; and on 
the 22d of December, 1620, one hundred of the Ley- 
den pilgrims, including men, women, and little children, 
landed from the Mayflower, on the rock of Plymouth. 
Then first the ark of God rested upon the soil of New 
England, and made it " holy ground." Let the annual 
return of that wintry day be bright in the hearts of the 
sons of New England, 

" Till the waves of the bay, where the Mayflower lay, 
Shall foam and freeze no more." 

Meanwhile the Puritans in England were striving 
and suffering in vain. Reluctant, for the most part, to 
admit the idea of separation from the national Church, 
they waited and prayed, and struggled to obtain a more 
perfect reformation. Their cause grew in favor with 
the people and with the Parliament, for it was felt to 
be the cause of Protestantism, of sobriety and godli- 
ness, and of civil liberty. But the monarch, and those 
dependent creatures of the monarch, the prelates, ap- 
pointed by his pleasure, and accountable to him alone, 
were steady in the determination to have no reform 
and to enforce submission. Five years after the settle- 
ment of Plymouth, King James was succeeded by his 
son Charles I, who with more gravity and respectability 
of personal character than belonged to his father, pur- 



16 

sued the same despotic policy, in the Church, and in 
the civil state, which made his father odious, as well 
as contemptible. His principal adviser was William 
Laud, a narrow minded and bitter enemy of all who 
desired any farther reformation in ecclesiastical disci- 
pline, a systematic corrupter of the established doc- 
trines of the Church, a superstitious promoter of pomp 
and ceremony in religion, more a friend to Rome than 
to Geneva or to Augsburg, a hater of popular rights 
and of the ancient liberties and common law of Eng- 
land, and the constant adviser of all arbitrary methods 
of government. This man, being made bishop of Lon- 
don, and afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, and 
having the king almost absolutely under his control, 
brought the despotic powers of the Star-chamber and 
of the High Commission Court to bear with new ter- 
rors, not only upon non-conforming clergymen, but 
upon men of other professions who dared to express an 
opinion in favor of reformation. 

In these circumstances, the same spirit that had led 
the Pilgrims of Leyden to Plymouth, led others, in 
greater numbers, and with more adequate means, to at- 
tempt the establishment of religious colonies in Amer- 
ica. Eight years after the settlement of Plymouth, the 
colony of Massachusetts Bay was commenced by En- 
dicott and his company at Salem ; and in 1630, Boston 
and the surrounding towns were occupied by the illus- 
trious Winthrop and the hundreds of emigrants who 
followed him. In 1635, the first beginnings were made 
on the Connecticut river, at Hartford and at Saybrook ; 
in 1636, Roger Williams opened at Providence his 
"refuge for all sorts of consciences;" and in 1638, 
another independent colony was commenced at New 
Haven. 



17 

Thus it was that New England was planted. The 
planting of North America upon merely mercenary and 
selfish principles had been attempted once and again, 
and had failed. Our fathers and predecessors came 
under the influence of higher motives, and of a holier 
inspiratiori. They came, actuated by a great and sub- 
lime idea, — an idea from the word and mind of God, — 
an idea that made them courageous to attempt, wise to 
plan, strong to suffer, and dauntless to persevere. Their 
souls were exalted to a perception of the grandeur of 
their undertaking and of the vast results that were sus- 
pended on its success. They were inspired by a living 
sympathy with the designs of that Almighty provi- 
dence, which led them into this boundless wilderness, 
that for them the wilderness and the solitary place 
might be glad, and the desert rejoice abundantly with 
joy and singing. Thus they could write upon their 
banners those words of Puritan faith and devotion, " In 
God we hope," " He who transplanted us, sustains us." 

Two points in the civil polity instituted by the found- 
ers of the several New England colonies, have been the 
subjects of sharp censure, and of ridicule not always 
quite so sharp, on the part of those who have not duly 
considered the character of that age, and the circum- 
stances in which that polity was instituted. I refer 
here to these two principles — first, that in the choice 
of magistrates, the making and repealing of laws, the 
dividing of inheritances, and the deciding of differences, 
all should be governed by the rules held forth in Scrip- 
ture ; and, secondly, that a man's Christian character, 
certified by the Church in the fact of his being a church 
member, should be essential, not to his enjoying civil 
rights and privileges, but to his exercising civil power. 
The adoption of such principles as the basis of their 

3 



18 

civil polity, is considered as proving beyond all dispute 
that the New England colonists were ignorant bigots 
and wild fanatics. 

If you believe the Bible to be a perfect rule of moral 
action, you are precluded from taking any exception 
against the first of these principles, as it has just been 
stated in the words of an ancient record. If you do 
not believe in the Bible as a rule of moral action, I 
confess I am not careful at present to answer you at 
all in this matter. The principle as it stands is simply 
that Christianity — the ethics of Christianity, should be 
the constitution of the commonwealth, the supreme law 
of the land. 

But give the principle another construction. Take 
it as it is commonly understood, and as it was actually 
applied in practice. In 1644, it was ordered by the 
General Court of the New Haven jurisdiction, (and the 
same principle was acted upon in the other colonies,) 
" that the judicial laws of God as they were delivered 
by Moses, and as they are a fence to the moral law, 
being neither typical nor ceremonial, nor having any 
reference to Canaan, shall be accounted of moral equity, 
and generally bind all offenders, and be a rule to all the 
courts in this jurisdiction in their proceedings against 
offenders, till they be branched out into particulars 
hereafter." Take this adoption of the civil laws of the 
Hebrew commonwealth, about which malicious hearts 
and shallow brains have so employed their faculties ; 
and what is there in this, that should make us ashamed 
of our fathers ? — what that proves them to be fanatics 
or bigots ? 

Remember now that, situated as they were, they 
must adopt either the laws of England or some other 
known system. A system entirely new, they could 



19 

not frame immediately. Should they then adopt the 
laws of England as the laws of their young republic ? 
Those were the very laws from which they had fled. 
Those laws would subject them at once to the king, to 
the parliament, and to the prelates, in their several 
jurisdictioils. The adoption of the laws of England 
would have been fatal to the object of their emigration. 
Should they then adopt the Roman civil law, which is 
the basis of the jurisprudence of most countries in Eu- 
rope ? That system is foreign to the genius of Eng- 
lishmen, and to the spirit of freedom, and besides, was 
unknown to the body of the people for whom laws were 
to be provided. What other course remained to them, 
if they wished to separate themselves from the power 
of the enemies who had driven them into banishment, 
and to provide for a complete and vital independence, 
but to adopt at once a system of laws which was in 
every man's hand, which every man read, and as he 
was able, expounded in his family, and with which every 
subject of the jurisdiction could easily be made famil- 
iarly acquainted. 

But what was there of absurdity in this code, consid- 
ered as a code for just such a settlement as this was ? 
Where are we, that we need raise such a question ? 
Is it in a Christian country, that the question must be 
argued, whether the Mosaic law, excluding whatever is 
typical, or ceremonial, or local, is absurd, as the basis 
or beginning of a system of jurisprudence ? Suppose 
the planters of the New England colonies had taken as 
their rule, in the administration of justice, the laws of 
Solon, or Lycurgus, or the laws of the twelve tables : 
suppose the agreement had been, that the laws of King 
Alfred should be followed in the punishment of offend- 
ers, in the settlement of controversies between individ- 



20 

uals, and in the division of estates : — where had been 
the absurdity ? Who will tell us, that the laws of Mo- 
ses are less wise or equitable than the laws of any other 
of the legislators of antiquity ? 

The laws of Moses were given to a community emi- 
grating from their native country, into a land which 
they were to acquire and occupy, for the great purpose 
of maintaining in simplicity and purity the worship of 
the one true God. The founders of New England came 
hither for the self-same purpose. Their emigration 
from their native country was a religious emigration. 
Every other interest of their community was held sub- 
ordinate to the purity of their religious faith and prac- 
tice. So far then as this point of comparison is con- 
cerned, the laws which were given to Israel in the 
wilderness may have been suited to the wants of a reli- 
gious colony planting itself in America. 

The laws of Moses were given to a people who were 
to live not only surrounded by heathen tribes on every 
frontier save the seaboard, but also with heathen inhab- 
itants, worshipers of the devil, intermixed among them, 
not fellow citizens, but men of another and barbarous 
race ; and the laws were therefore framed with a spe- 
cial reference to the corrupting influence of such neigh- 
borhood and intercourse. Similar to this was the con- 
dition of our fathers. The Canaanite was in the land, 
with his barbarian vices, with his heathenish and hide- 
ous superstitions ; and their servants and children were 
to be guarded against the contamination of intercourse 
with beings so degraded. 

The laws of the Hebrews were designed for a free 
people. Under those laws, so unlike all the institutions 
of oriental despotism, there was no absolute power, and, 
with the exception of the hereditary priesthood, whose 



21 

privileges as a class were well balanced by their labors 
and disabilities, no privileged classes. The aim of those 
laws was " equal and exact justice ;" and equal and ex- 
act justice is the only freedom. Equal and exact jus- 
tice in the laws, and in the administration of the laws, 
infuses freedom into the being of a people, secures the 
widest and most useful distribution of the means of en- 
joyment, and affords scope for the activity, and health- 
ful stimulus to the affections, of every individual. The 
people whose habits and sentiments are formed under 
such an administration of justice, will be a free people. 
But it is worth our while to notice two of the most 
important effects of their renouncing the laws of Eng- 
land, and adopting the Mosaic law. In the first place, 
the principle on which inheritances were to be divi- 
ded, was materially changed. The English law, except 
where some local usage prevails to the contrary, gives 
all real estate to the eldest son. This is the pillar of 
the English aristocracy. Let this one principle be taken 
away ; let estates, instead of passing undivided to a sin- 
gle heir, be divided among many heirs, and that vast 
accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few great 
families is at an end. But the Jewish law divides in- 
heritances among all the children, giving to the eldest 
son, as the head of the family, only a double portion. 
This promotes equality among the people, breaking up 
the rich man's great estate into as many portions as he 
has children, and thus insuring the constant division 
and general distribution of property. How different is 
the aspect of this country now, from vs^hat it would have 
been, if the feudal law of inheritance had been from the 
beginning the law of the land ! How incalculable has 
been the effect on the character of the people ! 



22 

Notice in the next place, how great a change in re- 
spect to the inflicting of capital punishments, was made 
by adopting the Hebrew laws, instead of the laws of 
England. By the laws of England, not far from one 
hundred and fifty crimes were at that time punishable 
with death. By the laws which the New England col- 
onists adopted, this bloody catalogue was reduced to 
eleven.* On such a difference as this, it would be idle 
to expatiate. In determining what kind of men our 
fathers were, we are to compare their laws, not with 
ours, but with the laws which they renounced. The 
greatest and boldest improvement which has been made 
in criminal jurisprudence, by any one act, since the 
dark ages, was that which was made by our fathers, 
when they determined, " that the judicial laws of God, 
as they were delivered by Moses, and as they are a fence 
to the moral law, being neither typical, nor ceremonial, 
nor having any reference to Canaan, shall be accounted 
of moral equity, and generally bind all offenders, and 
be a rule to all the courts." Whatever improvements 
in this respect we have made since their day, may be 
resolved into this : — We have learned to distinguish, 
better than they, between that in the laws of Moses 
which was of absolute obligation, being founded on per- 
manent and universal reasons only, and that which was 
ordained in reference to the peculiar circumstances of 
the Hebrew nation, and which was therefore temporary 
or local. 

So much for the first principle in the constitution 
adopted by the fathers of New England, namely, the 



* Murder, Treason, Perjury against the life of anollior, Kidnapping, Bcslialily, 
Sodomy, Adultery, Blasphemy in the highest degree, Idolatry, Witrhcraft, Rebel- 
lion against parents. 



23 

principle that the Bible should be their rule of justice. 
As to the other principle, namely, that political power 
should be committed only to those men whose moral 
character, and whose sympathy with the great design 
of the plantation, should be certified by their being 
members of the Church, — one simple fact which the 
fathers knew right well, is its only vindication as a po- 
litical measure. They knew that as soon as they should 
have built their houses and got their lands under culti- 
vation, as soon as they should have enough of what was 
taxable and titheable to excite covetousness, the king 
would be sending over his needy profligates to govern 
them, and the archbishop his surpliced commissaries to 
gather the tithes into his storehouse. Knowing this, 
they were resolved to leave no door open for such an 
invasion. They came hither to establish a free Chris- 
tian commonwealth ; and, to secure that end, they de- 
termined, that in their commonwealth, none should have 
any civil power, who either would not, or could not, en- 
ter at the door of church fellowship. " They held them- 
selves bound," they said, " to establish such civil order 
as might best conduce to the securing the purity and 
peace of the ordinances to themselves and their pos- 
terity." Was this fanatical ? Was this bigoted ? Place 
yourself in their circumstances, with their convictions 
of the importance of truth, simplicity, and purity, in the 
worship of God ; and say what you could do more ra- 
tional or more manly ? If we are to regard this provi- 
sion as a measure for the encouragement or promotion 
of piety, undoubtedly it must be pronounced a great mis- 
take. Piety is not to be promoted by making it the con- 
dition of any civil or political distinctions. This they 
knew as well as we ; and when they introduced the prin- 
ciple in question, it was not for the sake of bestowing hon- 



24 

ors or privileges upon piety, but for the sake of guarding 
their hberty and securing the end for which they had 
made themselves exiles. If you call their adoption of 
this principle fanaticism, it is to be remembered that 
the same fanaticism runs through the history of Eng- 
land. How long has any man in England been per- 
mitted to hold any office under the crown, without 
being a communicant in the Church of England ? The 
self-same fanaticism had, up to that time, character- 
ized all nations, protestant or popish, Mohammedan or 
heathen ; nay, as Davenport said, " these very Indians, 
that worship the devil," acted on the same principle, so 
that in his judgment " it seemed to be a principle im- 
printed in the minds and hearts of all men in the equity 
of it."* Call it fanaticism if you will. To that fanati- 
cism which threw off the laws of England, and made 
these colonies Puritan commonwealths, we are indebt- 
ed for our existence as a distinct and independent 
nation. 

But after all, we may be told, these fathers of ours 
were Puritans ; and this connection between the New 
England fathers and that fanatical party in their native 
country, shows what they were. Thus we come to 
another topic. Well, what and who were the Puritans ? 
Need any man be ashamed of being descended from 
such ancestors ? 

There are those whose ideas of the Puritans are de- 
rived only from such authorities as Butler's Hudibras, 
Scott's romances, and similar fictions. There are those, 
still more unfortunate, who form their opinion of the 
character of the Puritans from what they read in such 
works as that most unscrupulous and malicious of lying 

* Discourse about Civil Government, 24. 



25 

narratives, Peters's History of Connecticut. With per- 
sons whose historical knowledge is of this description, 
it would be a waste of time to argue. But those who 
know any thing of the history of England, may easily 
disabuse themselves of vulgar prejudices against the 
Puritans. 

What were the Puritans? The prejudices which 
have been infused into so many minds from the light, 
popular literature of England since the restoration, are 
ready to answer. The Puritans ! — every body knows 
what they were ; — an enthusiastic religious sect, distin- 
guished by peculiarities of dress and language, enemies 
of learning, haters of refinement and all social enjoy- 
ments, low-bred fanatics, crop-eared rebels, a rabble of 
round-heads, whose preachers were cobblers and tinkers, 
ever turning their optics in upon their own inward 
light, and waging fierce war upon mince pies and plum 
puddings. It was easy for the courtiers of King 
Charles II, when the men of what they called " the 
Grand Rebellion," had gone from the scene of action, 
thus to make themselves merry with misrepresentations 
of the Puritans, and to laugh at the wit of Butler and 
of South ; but their fathers laughed not, when, in many 
a field of conflict, the chivalry of England skipped like 
lambs, and proud banners rich with Norman heraldry, 
and emblazoned with bearings that had been stars of 
victory at Cressy and at Poictiers, were trailed in dust 
before the round-head regiments of Cromwell. 

What were the Puritans ? Let sober history answer. 
They were a great religious and political party, in a 
country and in an age in which every man's religion 
was a matter of political regulation. They were in 
their day the reforming party in the church and state 
of England. They were a party including, like all 

4 



26 

other great parties, religious or political, a great van 
ety of character, and men of all conditions in society. 
There were noblemen among them, and there were 
peasants ; but the bulk of the party was in the mid- 
dling classes, the classes which the progress of com- 
merce and civilization, and free thought, had created 
between the degraded peasantry and the corrupt aristo- 
cracy. The strong holds of the party were in the great 
commercial towns, and especially among the merchants 
and tradesmen of the metropolis. There were doubt- 
less some hypocrites among them, and some men of 
unsettled opinions, and some of loose morals, and some 
actuated by no higher sentiment than party spirit, but 
the party as a whole was characterized by a devoted 
love of country, by strict and stern morality, by hearty 
fervent piety, and by the strongest attachment to sound, 
evangelical doctrines. There were ignorant men among 
them, and weak men ; but comparing the two parties as 
masses, theirs was the intelligent and thinking party. 
There were among them some men of low ambition, 
some of a restless, envious, leveling temper, some of 
narrow views ; but the party as a whole, was the patri- 
otic party, it stood for popular rights, for the liberties 
of England, for law against prerogative, for the doc- 
trine that kings and magistrates were made for the 
people, and not the people for kings — ministers for the 
Church, and not the Church for ministers. 

Who were the Puritans ? Enemies of learning did 
you say.'^ You have heard of Lightfoot, second in 
scholarship to no other man, whose researches into all 
sorts of lore are even at this day the great store-house 
from which the most learned and renowned cemmenta- 
tors, not of England and America only, but of Ger- 
many, derive no insignificant portion of their learning. 



27 

Lightfoot was a Puritan.* You may have heard of 
Theophilus Gale, whose works have never yet been sur- 
passed for minute and laborious investigation into the 
sources of all the wisdom of the Gentiles. Gale was a 
Puritan. You may have heard of Owen, the fame of 
whose learning, not less than of his genius and his skill, 
filled all Europe, and constrained the most determined 
enemies of him, and of his party, to pay him the pro- 
foundest deference. Owen was, among divines, the very 
head and captain of the Puritans. You may have heard 
of Selden, the jurist, the universal scholar, whose 1 ern- 
ing was in his day, and is even at this day, the "glory of 
the English nation." Selden was a Puritan.t Strange 
that such men should have been identified with the ene- 
mies of learning. 

The Puritans triumphed for a while. They beat 
down not only the prelacy, but the peerage, and the 
throne. And what did they do with the universities ? 
The universities were indeed revolutionized by com- 
missioners from the Puritan Parliament ; and all who 
were enemies to the Commonwealth of England, as then 
established, were turned out of the seats of instruction 
and government. But were the revenues of the uni- 
versities confiscated ? — their halls given up to pillage ? 
— their libraries scattered and destroyed ? Never were 
the universities of England better regulated, never did 
they better answer the legitimate ends of such institu- 
tions, than when they were under the control of the 
Puritans. 

Who were the Puritans ? Enemies, did you say, of 
literature and refinement ? What is the most resplen- 

* Liglnfoot was a member of the Westminster Assembly of Divines. After the 
restoration, he conformed to the Established Church. 

t Selden was one of the lay members of the Westminster Assembly. 



28 

dent name in the literature of England ? Name that 
most illustrious of poets, who for magnificence of ima- 
gination, for grandeur of thought, for purity, beauty, 
and tenderness of sentiment, for harmony of numbers, 
for power and felicity of language, stands without a 
rival. Milton was a Puritan. 

Who were the low-bred fanatics, the crop-eared reb- 
els, the rabble of round-heads ? Name that purest pat- 
riot whose name stands brightest and most honored in 
the history of English liberty, and whose example is 
ever the star of guidance and of hope, to all who resist 
usurped authority. Hampden was a Puritan, — asso- 
ciate with Pym in the eloquence that swayed the Par- 
liament and " fulmin'd" over England, comrade in arms 
with Cromwell, and shedding his blood upon the battle 
field. 

But their preachers were cobblers and tinkers ! 
Were they indeed ? Well, and what were Christ's 
apostles ? One tinker I remember, among the preach- 
ers of that age, and of that great party — though not, 
in the most proper meaning of the word, a Puritan ; 
and what name is more worthy of a place among the 
names of the elected fishermen of Galilee, than the 
name of Bunyan ? That tinker, shut up in Bedford 
jail for the crime of preaching, saw there with the eye 
of faith and genius, visions only less divine than those 
which were revealed to his namesake in Patmos. His 
" Pilgrim's Progress" lives in all the languages of 
Christendom, among the most immortal of the works 
of human genius. Would that all preachers were gift- 
ed like that tinker Bunyan ! 

But the Puritan preachers cannot be characterized 
as illiterate, or as men who had been trained to mechan- 
ical employments. They were men from the universi- 



29 

ties, skilled in the learning of the age, and well equip- 
ped for the work of preaching. Never has England 
seen a more illustrious company of preachers than when 
Baxter, Owen, Bates, Charnock, Howe, and two thou- 
sand others of inferior attainments indeed, but of kin- 
dred spirit, labored in the pulpits of the establishment. 
Never has any ministry in the Church of England done 
more, in the same time, and under similar disadvan- 
tages, for the advancement of the people in the knowl- 
edge of Christian truth, and in the practice of Christian 
piety, than was done by the ministry of the Puritans. 
Whence came the best and most famous of those books 
of devotion, and of experimental and practical piety, 
which have so enriched our language, and by which the 
authors preach to all generations. The " Saint's Rest," 
the " Call to the Unconverted," the " Blessedness of the 
Righteous," the " Living Temple," these, and other 
works like these, which have been the means of leading 
thousands to God the eternal fountain, — are the works 
of Puritan preachers. 

Let me not be considered as maintaining that the 
Puritans were faultless and infallible. I know they had 
faults, great faults. I know they fell into serious er- 
rors. By their errors and faults, the great cause which 
their virtue so earnestly espoused, and their valor so 
strongly defended, was wrecked and almost ruined. 
But dearly did they pay, in disappointment, in persecu- 
tion, in many sufferings, in the contempt which was 
heaped upon them by the infatuated people they had 
vainly struggled to emancipate, — the penalty of their 
faults and errors. And'richly have their posterity, in- 
habiting both hemispheres, enjoyed, in well ordered lib- 
erty, in the diffusion of knowledge, and in the saving 
influences of pure Christianity, — the purchase of their 
sufferings, the reward of their virtues and their valor. 



30 

But aside from the constitution of their civil polity, 
and their relation to the Puritans of England, there are 
other topics of invective and ridicule against those ven- 
erable men who planted the New England colonies, 
some of which must be noticed, though with the utmost 
brevity. 

Did these men believe in witchcraft ? Certainly they 
did. Probably they never called in question for a mo- 
ment, the then universal opinion of the reality of com- 
merce between human beings and the invisible powers 
of darkness. And shall they be set down as weak and 
credulous, because they did not throw off all the errors 
of the age ? Shall the age in which they lived be deem- 
ed an age of extraordinary credulity, because it did not 
rid itself of prejudices and terrors which had been grow- 
ing in the world ever since the flood ? Shall the age 
of animal magnetism and Maria Monk, take credit to 
itself because it does not believe in witchcraft ? 

But I am asked again, Did not these good fathers of 
ours inflict punishment on the Quakers ? I answer, 
They did, — we admit their error, and condemn it. They 
did not understand aright the great principles of uni- 
versal religious freedom. They came hither for their 
own freedom and peace ; and that freedom and peace 
they thought themselves authorized and bound to de- 
fend against all invaders. The Quakers, however, 
whom they punished, were not a sect rising up on the 
soil of New England, and claiming simply the right of 
separate worship and free discussion. They were in- 
vaders who came from Old England to New, for the 
sole and declared purpose of disturbance and revolu- 
tion. They came propagating principles which were 
understood to strike at the foundation not only of the 
particular religious and civil polity here established. 



31 

but of all order and of society itself In their manner 
of proceeding they outraged peace and order, openly 
cursing and reviling the faith and worship which the 
New Englanders had come to the world's end to enjoy 
in quietness, the magistrates venerable for wisdom and 
public spirit, and the ministers whose gifts and faithful- 
ness were esteemed the brightest glory of the land. 
They outraged the religious rights and freedom of those 
whom they came to enhghten, thrusting themselves into 
worshiping assemblies on the Lord's day and other oc- 
casions, and interrupting the worship or the sermon 
with their outcries of contradiction and cursing. They 
outraged natural decency itself; one of their women- 
preachers, Deborah Wilson by name, " went through 
the streets of Salem naked as she came into the world;"* 
and in other instances, they came in the same plight 
into the public religious assemblies ;t and all to show 
by that sign the nakedness of other people's sins. I 
cannot doubt that such people — if indeed they were not 
too insane to be accountable for any thing — deserved 
to be punished, not for their opinions, but for their ac- 
tions ; not for their exercising their own rights, but for 
their invading the rights of others ; not for their publi- 
cation of offensive and even disorganizing doctrines, but 
for their outrages on decorum, and their disturbances 
of the public peace. If we condemn our fathers in this 
matter, it should be not because they punished such 
offenders, but because they punished them for heresy. 

But let us compare the conduct of our ancestors in 
this very matter, with the conduct of some in our more 
enlightened and free thinking age. The real succes- 
sors of the Quakers of that day — the men who come 

* Hutchinson, 1, 204. t Mather, Magn., VII, 100. 



32 

nearest to those enthusiasts in their actual relations 
to the public — are not to be found in those orderly 
and thrifty citizens of Philadelphia, who are distin- 
guished from their fellow citizens in Chestnut Street, 
by a little more circumference of the hat, and a little 
peculiarity of grammar, and perhaps a little more 
quietness and staidness of manner. What we call 
Q,uakers in this generation, are no more like George 
Fox in his suit of leather, than the pomp and riches 
of an English Archbishop are like the poverty of 
an Apostle. Do you find these men going about 
like mad men, reviling magistrates, and all in author- 
ity, cursing ministers, and publishing doctrines that 
strike at the existence of all government.'^ No, if 
you would find the true successors of the Quakers of 
1650, you must look elsewhere. The Anti-slavery agi- 
tators of our day, are extensively regarded very much 
as the Quakers were regarded by our ancestors. Some 
of them execrate our constitution and our laws, and 
revile our magistrates, and utter all manner of reproach 
ao"ainst our ministers and our churches. Some of them 
go about preaching doctrines which tend not only to 
the extinction of the " peculiar institutions" of one part 
of our country, and the subversion of our " glorious 
union," but to absolute and universal anarchy. We 
cannot indeed charge upon them every thing that was 
charged upon the ancient Quakers ; Mr. Garrison him- 
self has not yet put on the leather jerkin of George 
Fox; nor have we heard of his attempting, like Hum- 
phrey Norton, to break in with his ravings upon the 
solemn worship of a religious assembly on the Sabbath ; 
nor has Miss Grimke, or Miss Abby Kelly, set herself 
to testify against the sins of the people, in just the same 
style with Deborah Wilson. But they have published 



33 

doctrines highly offensive to pubhc opinion, and as is 
commonly believed highly dangerous to society ; they 
have invaded Congress with their petitions ; nay, it is 
even reported that they have been seen in public places, 
walking arm in arm with persons of African descent 
and complexion. And how are these men treated, in 
our age of toleration and free inquiry ? How are they 
treated by those who are most fiercely liberal, in the 
condemnation of our ancestors, for persecuting the 
Quakers ? The answer is found in the roar of mobs 
and the smoke of smouldering ruins — in presses vio- 
lently suppressed — in the murder of editors, and the 
acquittal of the murderers by perjured jurymen. How 
are they treated in those enlightened regions of the 
Union, where Puritanism, Blue laws, and New Eng- 
land intolerance, are renounced most fervently and de- 
voutly ? Let one of these " pestilent fanatics" adven- 
ture on a mission to Mississippi or Virginia, and how 
much better does he fare than Humphrey Norton fared 
in Plymouth and New Haven ?* The " little finger" 
of a Lynch committee, is " thicker than the loins" of 
a Puritan magistracy, against the fanatics that make 
war upon established opinions and cherished institu- 
tions. 

What then is the chief difference between that age 
and the present, in respect to tolerance, in an extreme 
case like that of the Quakers ? The difference is just 
this. Our ancestors made laws against the fanatics 
with whom they had to do, and boldly and manfully 
maintained those laws. The Quaker who suffered in 
New England, suffered the penalty of a known law, 
after a judicial conviction. In our day, on the other 

* Kingsley, 99. 

5 



34 

hand, laws to limit freedom of opinion and of discussion, 
are inconsistent with the enlightened and liberal max- 
ims of government, that now so happily prevail ; and 
therefore what the law cannot do, in that it is weak, 
must be done by the mob, without law and against law, 
in that high court of equity, where rage, more fanati- 
cal than any other fanaticism, is at once accuser, wit- 
ness, judge, and executioner. 

Another topic in the indictment against the founders 
of New England, is the character and influence of their 
ministers. The true answer to this is to be found in 
the entire civil and ecclesiastical history of New Eng- 
land. The History of the United States, now in pro- 
gress, from the pen of one of the most accomplished 
scholars of New England, as by the beauty of its style, 
the philosophic reach of its views, and the epic unity 
into which the poetic mind of its author combines and 
blends its variegated materials, it makes its own way, 
where the humble but not less faithful chronicles of 
elder time have not been known, — will do much towards 
refuting the popular calumny. I hesitate not to say 
that no instance can be found in the history of man, 
in which the ministers of religion, as a body, have so 
completely and spontaneously denuded themselves of 
all power civil and ecclesiastical, as was done by the 
ministers of New England. They retained in their 
hands as ministers no power whatever but the power 
of their learning, their good sense, and their personal 
characters. If I had time to show you the full charac- 
ter of John Davenport, and the influence which he ex- 
erted in the colony of New Haven, I should have no 
need of any other argument. But as I cannot do this, 
you will allow me to give you from the records of New 
Haven, one scene of his history never yet published. 



35 

At a town-meeting, — or as it was called in those days, 
a general court for the town, — on the 28th of February, 
1659, a request was made by the farmers of what is 
now East Haven and North Haven, for certain grants 
of land and privileges in order to the establishment of 
villages, so that they maintaining public worship and 
other town expenses by themselves, should not be taxed 
for such expenses in the tow^n, and should have the 
power of taxing all the lands within their limits wheth- 
er belonging to themselves or non-residents. The ap- 
plication was of course resisted on the ground that this 
setting off of new parishes would increase the town's 
taxes, and would diminish the ability of the people to 
support the ministry. It was obvious that the inhabi- 
tants of the town had an immediate pecuniary interest 
against the petition. The petitioners seem to have 
thought — reasonably enough — that by having such 
privileges and forming distinct parishes, each with a 
village at its center, they would not only be relieved 
from the very serious inconvenience of coming into 
town every Lord's day, and every training day or town 
meeting day ; biit would be able to give more value to 
their lands, and to get a more competent subsistence. 
The proposal seems to have been something like an ef- 
fort on the part of a body of men of inferior condition, 
to obtain such a change as would put them more com- 
pletely on a level vs^ith the merchants and capitalists of 
the town. In other words, it was what would now be 
called a movement of the democracy. One of the far- 
mers said, " it was well known that at the first they 
were many of them looked upon as mean men to live by 
their labor ; therefore they had at first spnall lots given 
them ; but they finding by experience that they could 
not in that way maintain their families, they were put 
upon looking out." 



36 

On this occasion, Mr. Davenport took the lead in the 
discussion. He addressed the meeting immediately after 
the proposal had been stated ; and in opposition to what 
most would regard as the town's pecuniary interest in 
the case, in opposition to the feeling, how shall the sup- 
port of the ministry here be secured, and in opposition 
to the natural reluctance with which towns as well as 
individuals give up any particle of power, he argued 
strenuously for the extension of these privileges to the 
farmers. His arguments are so characteristic not only 
of his piety, but of his good sense and of his political 
wisdom, that they are worth repeating at length, as we 
find them on the records. 

" The business they were exercised about being of 
great weight both for the honor of God and the good of 
posterity, he therefore desired that it might be weight- 
ily considered. 

" If we look to God, it is that his kingdom may come 
and be set up among us, and that his will may be done. 
Now if we provide not for the sanctification of the Sab- 
bath, the will of God will not be done. The law, he 
said, was expressed Levit. xxiii, 3, ' Six days shall work 
be done, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, a 
holy convocation, ye shall do no work therein, it is the 
Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings.' This law 
was not proper to the land of Canaan, but a brief repe- 
tition of the fourth commandment, which requires that 
we should sanctify the Sabbath as a day of holy rest. 
Now in this way of farms at such a distance, it cannot 
be kept as a holy convocation, and as a day of holy rest 
in all our dwellings. Therefore we shall live in the 
breach of the fourth commandment in this way. 

" Besides, there are other things to be attended (as 
they ought to be) in a well ordered commonwealth ; 



37 

particularly, to use all due means to prevent sin in 
others, which cannot be done in this way; for many 
great abominations may be committed, and bring the 
wrath of God on the plantation ; like the secret fact of 
Achan, — for which, wrath came upon the whole con- 
gregation of Israel, because they used not what means 
they might to prevent it ; therefore could they not pros- 
per when they went against the nien of Ai. Therefore, 
would we prosper, let us prevent sin what we can in the 
farms. If they were brought into a village form, there 
might be some officer to look to civil order. But that 
being not done, he saw not but that we are in continued 
danger of the wrath of God, because we do not what we 
may for the prevention of disorders that may fall out 
there. 

" And besides this, we are to look to the good of pos- 
terity. Now it is a sad object to consider, how they are 
deprived of the means for the education of their chil- 
dren. But if they were reduced to villages, they might 
then have one to teach their children. 

" Mr. Davenport farther said. Let there be no divi- 
sions or contentions among you. But let every one, 
with some self-denial, set himself to further the work so 
as may be for the good both of the town and the farms. 
He said he sought not the destruction of the town or 
farms. But in his judgment, he thought, if the town 
fall into a way of trade, then the villages might be help- 
ful to the town, and the town to the villages. And if 
the town did not consider of some way to further trade 
[that is, not only buying and selling, but the production 
of commodities to be bought and sold,] how they would 
subsist he saw not. He further said, he did like it well 
that there had been some consultation about a mill," — 
which — " if God prosper it, may be a furtherance of 



38 

trade. And if it please God to bless the iron work, that 
may be also a foundation for trade. Now put all these 
together ; — the town falling into a way of trade will be 
in a better state, and the villages accommodated ; and 
the honor of God in the sanctification of the Sabbath 
and the upholding of civil order will be provided for. 

" Mr. Davenport farther said, that he looked upon it 
as a merciful hand of God that his wrath hath not broke 
out against us more than it hath, when sin hath not 
been prevented at the farms as it might have been. 
Let us now, said he, set our thoughts a-work how the 
kingdom of Christ may be settled among us, and that 
the will of God may be done in the sanctification of the 
Sabbath, by reducing the farms into villages. But 
herein we must go above sense and reason. Lay this 
foundation. Doth God require it ? If he doth, then here 
we must exercise faith ; as the Jews, — how they should 
be supplied, being God had commanded that every 
seventh year their land should rest, — and for safety, 
when at the commandment of God all their males must 
thrice in a year appear before the Lord at Jerusalem. 
Yet we must make use of reason and understanding 
that it may be done in such a way as may be for the 
good both of the town and of the farms. And the Lord 
guide you in it." 

By this argument of Mr. Davenport's, the subject 
was introduced, and the discussion opened. All the 
veneration with which the people regarded their pas- 
tor did not prevent the free expression of objections. 
Among others, Sergeant Jeffries, while he professed 
himself " marvellous willing the villages should go on," 
thought it was " to be considered whether villages will 
not wrong the town much," and suggested, further- 
more, " that the ministry of the colony was much un- 



39 

settled,* which is a great discouragement to such a 
work." "To which Mr. Davenport answered, that 
Christ holds the stars in his right hand, and disposes of 
them as seems good to him. But this we must know, 
that if we obey not the voice of the prophets, God will 
take away the prophets. He further said, If we build 
God's house, God will build our house. He exhorted to 
consider whether it be our duty or not, and said that 
unless we look upon it as a duty, he would never advise 
to go about villages, nor any thing else of that nature." 
All this, I say, shows us the character of the first 
New England pastors, and the sort of influence which 
they exerted in the community. Davenport's great 
concern was, indeed, that Christ's kingdom might be 
set up, that God's will might be done, and that to this 
all the arrangements of the commonwealth might tend. 
Sin, which when not duly restrained, brings God's 
wrath upon communities as upon individuals, was that 
which of all things he most feared. But his views did 
not begin and end with these two points. To him the 
good of posterity as dependent on education, was the 
greatest of public interests. The thought that any of 
the people were deprived of means for the education of 
their children, affected him with sadness. His influ- 
ence made men feel that the surest way to prosper, was 
to be ever doing God's work, and to have all our inter- 
ests identified with the prosperity of the kingdom of 
God. Yet his piety was not inconsistent with the most 
sagacious policy. Even when he would have men " go 
above sense and reason," and "exercise faith," he would 
nevertheless have them " make use of reason and un- 



* This was in February, 165!). The Church in Milford was then vacant by the 
death of Mr. Prudden, in 1656. Mr. Higginson left Guilford in 1659. 



40 

derstanding" to ascertain and promote the public wel- 
fare. His comprehensive mind, which his piety enlar- 
ged instead of contracting, formed in itself the idea 
which New England now exhibits every where in the 
happy reality ; manufacturing and commercial towns 
upon the bays and rivers ; rural municipalities filling 
the country around ; and town and country each free 
from subjection to the other, yet mutually dependent, 
ministering to each other's prosperity. 

To the stranger passing through New England, and 
becoming acquainted with the peculiarities of our social 
condition and of our civil polity, nothing is more strik- 
ing, or more admirable, than the continual succession 
of villages, each with its neat white spire, its school 
houses, its clusters of comfortable dwellings, its own 
municipal rights and regulations, and each vieing with 
its neighbor villages in order, thrift, and beauty. In 
other parts of the country, where New England influ- 
ence not having predominated at the beginning, the 
forms of society are not molded after ours, you see a 
succession of broad farms, with many a pleasing indi- 
cation of prosperous industry; but the villages are 
only at the " county seat," or where the exigencies of 
business create them. New England is a land of vil- 
lages, not of manufacturing villages merely, or trading 
villages, but of villages formed for society, villages in 
each of which the meeting house is the acropolis. Th,e 
reasons of this peculiarity appear from that argument 
of Mr. Davenport's which I have just recited. These 
villages were created — not as many have supposed, for 
defense alone, else why did not the same reason cause 
villages in Pennsylvania and Virginia — but first that the 
worship of God might be maintained, and his Sabbaths 
be duly honored; secondly, that the people might have 



41 

schools for all their children ; thirdly, that they might 
maintain among themselves the most efficient civil 
order ; and fourthly, that instead of living, each planter 
in solitary independence, they might live in mutual 
dependence and mutual helpfulness, and might thus 
develop more rapidly and effectually the natural re- 
sources of the country. 

It is always easy to detract from greatness and from 
goodness ; for the greatest minds are not exempt from 
infirmity, and the purest and noblest bear some stain of 
human imperfection. Let others find fault with the 
founders of the New England colonies, because they 
were not more than human ; be it ours to honor them. 
We have no occasion to disparage the wisdom or the 
virtues of the lawgivers of other states and nations ; 
nor need the admirers of Calvert or of Penn detract 
from the wisdom, the valor, or the devotion of the 
fathers of New England. Not to Winthrop and Cot- 
ton, nor to Eaton and Davenport, nor yet to Bradford 
and Brewster, belongs the glory of demonstrating with 
how little government society can be kept together, and 
men's lives and property be safe from violence. That 
glory belongs to Roger Williams ; and to him belongs 
also the better glory of striking out and maintaining, 
with the enthusiasm though not without something of 
the extravagance of genius, the great conception of a 
perfect rehgious liberty. New England has learned to 
honor the name of Williams as one of the most illus- 
trious in her records; and his principle of unlimited 
religious freedom, is now incorporated into the being 
of all her commonwealths. To Penn belongs the glory 
of having first opened in this land a free and broad 
asylum for men of every faith and every lineage. To 
him due honor is conceded ; and America, still receiv- 

6 



42 

ing into her " broad-armed ports," and enrolling among 
her own citizens, the thousands that come not only 
from the British Isles, but from the Alps, and from the 
Rhine, and from the bloody soil of Poland, — glories in 
his spreading renown. What then do we claim for the 
Pilgrims of Plymouth — what for the stern old Puritans 
of the Bay and of Connecticut — what for the founders 
of New Haven ? Nothing, but that you look with can- 
dor on what they have done for their posterity and for 
the world. Their labors, their principles, their institu- 
tions, have made New England, with its hard soil and its 
cold, long winters, " the glory of all lands." The thou- 
sand towns and villages, — the decent sanctuaries not for 
show but for use, crowning the hill-tops, or peering out 
from the valleys, — the means of education accessible to 
every family — the universal diffusion of knowledge — the 
order and thrift, the general activity and enterprise, the 
unparalleled equality in the distribution of property, 
the general happiness, resulting from the diffusion of 
education and of pure religious doctrine, — the safety in 
which more than half the population sleep nightly with 
unbolted doors, — the calm, holy Sabbaths, when mute 
nature in the general silence becomes vocal with praise, 
when the whisper of the breeze seems more distinct, 
the distant water-fall louder and more musical, the 
carol of the morning birds, clearer and sweeter, — this 
is New England ; and where will you find the like, save 
where you find the operation of New England princi- 
ples and New England influence ? This is the work 
of our fathers and ancient lawgivers. They came 
hither, not with new theories of government from the 
laboratories of political alchymists, not to try wild ex- 
periments upon human nature, but only to found a new 
empire for God, for truth, for virtue, for freedom guard- 



43 

ed and bounded by justice. To have failed in such an 
attempt had been glorious. Their glory is that they 
succeeded. 

In founding their commonwealths, their highest aim 
was the glory of God in " the common welfare of all." 
Never before, save when God brought Israel out of 
Egypt, had any government been instituted with such 
an aim. They had no model before them, and no guid- 
ance save the principles of truth and righteousness em- 
bodied in the word of God, and the wisdom which he 
giveth liberally to them that ask him. They thought 
that their end, " the common welfare of all," was to be 
secured by founding pure and free Churches, by pro- 
viding the means of universal education, and by laws 
maintaining perfect justice, which is the only perfect 
liberty. " The common welfare of all," said Daven- 
port, is that "whereunto all men are bound principally 
to attend in laying the foundation of a commonwealth, 
lest posterity rue the first miscarriages when it will be 
too late to redress them. They that are skillful in archi- 
tecture observe, that the breaking or yielding of a stone 
in the groundwork of a building, but the breadth of the 
back of a knife, will make a cleft of more than half a 
foot in the fabric aloft. So important, saith mine au- 
thor, are fundamental errors. The Lord awaken us to 
look to it in time, and send us his light and truth to 
lead us into the safest ways in these beginnings."* 

Not in vain did that prayer go up to heaven. Light 
and truth were sent ; and posterity has had no occasion 
to rue the miscarriages of those who laid the " ground- 
work" of New England. On their foundations has aris- 
en a holy structure. Prayers, toils, tears, sacrifices, 



* Discouise upon Civil Government, 14. 



44 

and precious blood, have hallowed it. No unseemly 
fissures deforming "the fabric aloft," dishonor its found- 
ers. Convulsions that have rocked the world, have not 
moved it. When terror has seized the nations, and the 
faces of kings have turned pale at the footsteps of Al- 
mighty v^^rath, peace has been within its walls, and still 
the pure incense has been fragrant at its altar. Wise 
master-builders were they who laid the foundations. 
They built for eternity. 

As we trace our history from one period of distress 
and conflict to another, the thought is continually pre- 
senting itself, How great the expense at which our 
privileges have been obtained for us! We dwell in 
peace and perfect safety. The lines are fallen to us in 
pleasant places. Beauty, comfort, light, joy, are all 
around us. The poorest man among us, has within his 
reach, immunities and blessings without number, means 
of improvement and means of enjoyment, to which the 
far greater portion of mankind, even in the most favored 
communities, have hitherto been strangers. And how 
little of this has been obtained by any effort or any 
sacrifice of ours. We have entered into other men's 
labors. We are enjoying the results of their agonies, 
and the answer to their prayers. They subdued the 
wilderness, and planted a land not sown ; that we might 
dwell in a land adorned with culture, and enriched with 
the products of industry and art. They traversed with 
weary steps the pathless woods, where the wild beast 
growled upon them from his lair ; that we might travel 
upon roads of iron, and borne by powers of which they 
never dreamed, might leave the winds behind us as we 
go. They encountered all that is terrible in savage 
war, and shed their blood in swamps and forests ; that 
we might live in this security. They, with anxiety that 



45 

never rested, and with many a stroke of vigilant or 
daring policy, baffled the machinations of the enemies 
who sought to reduce them to a servile dependence on 
the crown ; that we might enjoy this popular govern- 
ment, these equal laws, this perfect liberty. They 
came to the world's end, away from schools and libra- 
ries, and all the fountains of light in the old world ; that 
we and our children might inhabit a land, glorious with 
the universal diffusion of knowledge. They were ex- 
iles for truth and purity, they like their Savior, were 
tempted in the wilderness; that the truth might make 
us free, and that the richest blessing of their covenant 
God might come on their posterity. All that there is 
in our lot for which to be grateful, we owe, under God, 
to those who here have labored, and prayed, and suf- 
fered for us. 

So it is every where. While every man is in one 
view the arbiter of his own destiny, the author of his 
own weal or woe ; in another view, equally true and 
equally important, every man's lot is determined by 
others. Every where in this world, you see the prin- 
ciple of vicarious action and vicarious suffering. No 
being under the government of God, exists for himself 
alone ; and in this world of conflict and of change, 
where evermore one generation passeth away and 
another generation cometh, the greatest toil of each 
successive age is to provide for its successors. Thus, 
by the very constitution and conditions of our existence 
here, does our Creator teach us to rise above the nar- 
row views and aims of selfishness, and to find our hap- 
piness in seeking the happiness of others. Such is 
God's plan, — such are the relations by which he con- 
nects us with the past and with the future, as well as 
with our fellow actors in the passing scene ; and the 



46 

mind which by the grace of the gospel has been re- 
newed to a participation " of the Divine nature," throws 
itself spontaneously into God's plan, and learns the 
meaning of that motto, " None of us liveth to himself, 
and none dieth to himself" Such a mind, created 
anew in Christ, and knowing him and the power of his 
resurrection, knows also the fellowship of his sufferings, 
being made conformable to his death. In this spirit an 
apostle exclaimed, " I rejoice in my sufferings for you, 
and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of 
Christ." 

Look about you now, and compute if you can, how 
much you are enjoying of the purchase of other men's 
toils, the results of their patience and steadfastness, and 
the answer to their prayers. The debt is infinite. All 
that you can do to discharge it, is to stand in your lot, 
for truth, for freedom, for virtue, and " for the good of 
posterity." 



ODE, 



BY WILLIAM C. BRYANT 



Wild was the day, the wintry sea 

Moaned sadly on New England's strand, 

When first the thoughtful and the fi-ee, 
Our fathers, trod the desert land. 

They little thought how pure a light, 
In time, should gather round that day : 

How love should keep their memory bright ; 
How wide a realm their sons should sway. 

Green are their hays, but greener still, 

Shall round their spreading fame be wreathed ; 

And regions, now untrod, shall thrill 
With reverence when their names are breathed 

Till where the sun, with softer fires. 

Looks on the vast Pacific's sleep, 
The children of the Pilgrim Sires, 

This hallowed day, like us, shall keep. 



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